Orde was up and out at six o'clock the following morning. By eight he had reported for work at Daly's mill, where, with the assistance of a portion of the river crew, he was occupied in sorting the logs in the booms. Not until six o'clock in the evening did the whistle blow for the shut-down. Then he hastened home, to find that Newmark had preceded him by some few moments and was engaged in conversation with Grandma Orde. The young man was talking easily, though rather precisely and with brevity. He nodded to Orde and finished his remark.
After supper Orde led the way up two flights of narrow stairs to his own room. This was among the gables, a chamber of strangely diversified ceiling, which slanted here and there according to the demands of the roof outside.
“Well,” said he, “I've made up my mind to-day to go in with you. It may not work out, but it's a good chance, and I want to get in something that looks like money. I don't know who you are, nor how much of a business man you are or what your experience is, but I'll risk it.”
“I'm putting in twenty thousand dollars,” pointed out Newmark.
“And I'm putting in my everlasting reputation,” said Orde. “If we tell these fellows that we'll get out their logs for them, and then don't do it, I'll be DEAD around here.”
“So that's about a stand-off,” said Newmark. “I'm betting twenty thousand on what I've seen and heard of you, and you're risking your reputation that I don't want to drop my money.”
Orde laughed.
“And I reckon we're both right,” he responded.
“Still,” Newmark pursued the subject, “I've no objection to telling you about myself. New York born and bred; experience with Cooper and Dunne, brokers, eight years. Money from a legacy. Parents dead. No relatives to speak to.”
Orde nodded gravely twice in acknowledgment.
“Now,” said Newmark, “have you had time to do any figuring?”
“Well,” replied Orde, “I got at it a little yesterday afternoon, and a little this noon. I have a rough idea.” He produced a bundle of scribbled papers from his coat-pocket. “Here you are. I take Daly as a sample, because I've been with his outfit. It costs him to run and deliver his logs one hundred miles about two dollars a thousand feet. He's the only big manufacturer up here; the rest are all at Monrovia, where they can get shipping by water. I suppose it costs the other nine firms doing business on the river from two to two and a half a thousand.”
Newmark produced a note-book and began to jot down figures.
“Do these men all conduct separate drives?” he inquired.
“All but Proctor and old Heinzman. They pool in together.”
“Now,” went on Newmark, “if we were to drive the whole river, how could we improve on that?”
“Well, I haven't got it down very fine, of course,” Orde told him, “but in the first place we wouldn't need so many men. I could run the river on three hundred easy enough. That saves wages and grub on two hundred right there. And, of course, a few improvements on the river would save time, which in our case would mean money. We would not need so many separate cook outfits and all that. Of course, that part of it we'd have to get right down and figure on, and it will take time. Then, too, if we agreed to sort and deliver, we'd have to build sorting booms down at Monrovia.”
“Suppose we had all that. What, for example, do you reckon you could bring Daly's logs down for?”
Orde fell into deep thought, from which he emerged occasionally to scribble on the back of his memoranda.
“I suppose somewhere about a dollar,” he announced at last. He looked up a trifle startled. “Why,” he cried, “that looks like big money! A hundred per cent!”
Newmark watched him for a moment, a quizzical smile wrinkling the corners of his eyes.
“Hold your horses,” said he at last. “I don't know anything about this business, but I can see a few things. In the first place, close figuring will probably add a few cents to that dollar. And then, of course, all our improvements will be absolutely valueless to anybody after we've got through using them. You said yesterday they'd probably stand us in seventy-five thousand dollars. Even at a dollar profit, we'd have to drive seventy-five million before we got a cent back. And, of course, we've got to agree to drive for a little less than they could themselves.”
“That's so,” agreed Orde, his crest falling.
“However,” said Newmark briskly, as he arose, “there's good money in it, as you say. Now, how soon can you leave Daly?”
“By the middle of the week we ought to be through with this job.”
“That's good. Then we'll go into this matter of expense thoroughly, and establish our schedule of rates to submit to the different firms.”
Newmark said a punctilious farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Orde.
“By the way,” said Orde to him at the gate, “where are you staying?”
“At the Grand.”
“I know most of the people here—all the young folks. I'd be glad to take you around and get you acquainted.”
“Thank you,” replied Newmark, “you are very kind. But I don't go in much for that sort of thing, and I expect to be very busy now on this new matter; so I won't trouble you.”
The new partners, as soon as Orde had released himself from Daly, gave all their time to working out a schedule of tolls. Orde drew on his intimate knowledge of the river and its tributaries, and the locations of the different rollways, to estimate as closely as possible the time it would take to drive them. He also hunted up Tom North and others of the older men domiciled in the cheap boarding-houses of Hell's Half-Mile, talked with them, and verified his own impressions. Together, he and Newmark visited the supply houses, got prices, obtained lists. All the evenings they figured busily, until at last Newmark expressed himself as satisfied.
“Now, Orde,” said he, “here is where you come in. It's now your job to go out and interview these men and get their contracts for driving their next winter's cut.”
But Orde drew back.
“Look here, Joe,” he objected, “that's more in your line. You can talk business to them better than I can.”
“Not a bit,” negatived Newmark. “They don't know me from Adam, and they do know you, and all about you. We've got to carry this thing through at first on our face, and they'd be more apt to entrust the matter to you personally.”
“All right,” agreed Orde. “I'll start in on Daly.”
He did so the following morning. Daly swung his bulk around in his revolving office-chair and listened attentively.
“Well, Jack,” said he, “I think you're a good riverman, and I believe you can do it. I'd be only too glad to get rid of the nuisance of it, let alone get it done cheaper. If you'll draw up your contract and bring it in here, I'll sign it. I suppose you'll break out the rollways?”
“No,” said Orde; “we hadn't thought of doing more than the driving and distributing. You'll have to deliver the logs in the river. Maybe another year, after we get better organised, we'll be able to break rollways—at a price per thousand—but until we get a-going we'll have to rush her through.”
Orde repeated this to his associate.
“That was smooth enough sailing,” he exulted.
“Yes,” pondered Newmark, removing his glasses and tapping his thumb with their edge. “Yes,” he repeated, “that was smooth sailing. What was that about rollways?”
“Oh, I told him we'd expect him to break out his own,” said Orde.
“Yes, but what does that mean exactly?”
“Why,” explained Orde, with a slight stare of surprise, “when the logs are cut and hauled during the winter, they are banked on the river-banks, and even in the river-channel itself. Then, when the thaws come in the spring, these piles are broken down and set afloat in the river.”
“I see,” said Newmark. “Well, but why shouldn't we undertake that part of it? I should think that would be more the job of the river-drivers.”
“It would hold back our drive too much to have to stop and break rollways,” explained Orde.
The next morning they took the early train for Monrovia, where were situated the big mills and the offices of the nine other lumber companies. Within an hour they had descended at the small frame terminal station, and were walking together up the village street.
Monrovia was at that time a very spread-out little place of perhaps two thousand population. It was situated a half mile from Lake Michigan, behind the sparsely wooded sand hills of its shore. From the river, which had here grown to a great depth and width, its main street ran directly at right angles. Four brick blocks of three stories lent impressiveness to the vista. The stores in general, however, were low frame structures. All faced broad plank sidewalks raised above the street to the level of a waggon body. From this main street ran off, to right and left, other streets, rendered lovely by maple trees that fairly met across the way. In summer, over sidewalk and roadway alike rested a dense, refreshing dark shadow that seemed to throw from itself an odour of coolness. This was rendered further attractive by the warm spicy odour of damp pine that arose from the resilient surface of sawdust and shingles broken beneath the wheels of traffic. Back from these trees, in wide, well-cultivated lawns, stood the better residences. They were almost invariably built of many corners, with steep roofs meeting each other at all angles, with wide and ornamented red chimneys, numerous windows, and much scroll work adorning each apex and cornice. The ridge poles bristled in fancy foot-high palisades of wood. Chimneys were provided with lightning-rods. Occasionally an older structure, on square lines, recorded the era of a more dignified architecture. Everywhere ran broad sidewalks and picket fences. Beyond the better residence districts were the board shanties of the mill workers.
Orde and Newmark tramped up the plank walk to the farthest brick building. When they came to a cross street, they had to descend to it by a short flight of steps on one side, and ascend from it by a corresponding flight on the other. At the hotel, Newmark seated himself in a rocking-chair next the big window.
“Good luck!” said he.
Orde mounted a wide, dark flight of stairs that led from the street to a darker hall. The smell of stale cigars and cocoa matting was in the air. Down the dim length of this hall he made his way to a door, which without ceremony he pushed open.
He found himself in a railed-off space, separated from the main part of the room by a high walnut grill.
“Mr. Heinzman in?” he asked of a clerk.
“I think so,” replied the clerk, to whom evidently Orde was known.
Orde spent the rest of the morning with Heinzman, a very rotund, cautious person of German extraction and accent. Heinzman occupied the time in asking questions of all sorts about the new enterprise. At twelve he had not in any way committed himself nor expressed an opinion. He, however, instructed Orde to return the afternoon of the following day.
“I vill see Proctor,” said he.
Orde, rather exhausted, returned to find Newmark still sitting in the rocking-chair with his unlighted cigar. The two had lunch together, after which Orde, somewhat refreshed, started out. He succeeded in getting two more promises of contracts and two more deferred interviews.
“That's going a little faster,” he told Newmark cheerfully.
The following morning, also, he was much encouraged by the reception his plan gained from the other lumbermen. At lunch he recapitulated to Newmark.
“That's four contracts already,” said he, “and three more practically a sure thing. Proctor and Heinzman are slower than molasses about everything, and mean as pusley, and Johnson's up in the air, the way he always is, for fear some one's going to do him.”
“It isn't a bad outlook,” admitted Newmark.
But Heinzman offered a new problem for Orde's consideration.
“I haf talked with Proctor,” said he, “and ve like your scheme. If you can deliffer our logs here for two dollars and a quarter, why, that is better as ve can do it; but how do ve know you vill do it?”
“I'll guarantee to get them here all right,” laughed Orde.
“But what is your guarantee good for?” persisted Heinzman blandly, locking his fingers over his rotund little stomach. “Suppose the logs are not deliffered—what then? How responsible are you financially?”
“Well, we're investing seventy-five thousand dollars or so.”
Heinzman rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and wafted the imaginary pulverisation away.
“Worth that for a judgment,” said he.
He allowed a pause to ensue.
“If you vill give a bond for the performance of your contract,” pursued Heinzman, “that vould be satisfactory.”
Orde's mind was struck chaotic by the reasonableness of this request, and the utter impossibility of acceding to it.
“How much of a bond?” he asked.
“Twenty-fife thousand vould satisfy us,” said Heinzman. “Bring us a suitable bond for that amount and ve vill sign your contract.”
Orde ran down the stairs to find Newmark. “Heinzman won't sign unless we give him a bond for performance,” he said in a low tone, as he dropped into the chair next to Newmark.
Newmark removed his unlighted cigar, looked at the chewed end, and returned it to the corner of his mouth.
“Heinzman has sense,” said he drily. “I was wondering if ordinary business caution was unknown out here.”
“Can we get such a bond? Nobody would go on my bond for that amount.”
“Mine either,” said Newmark. “We'll just have to let them go and drive ahead without them. I only hope they won't spread the idea. Better get those other contracts signed up as soon as we can.”
With this object in view, Orde started out early the next morning, carrying with him the duplicate contracts on which Newmark had been busy.
“Rope 'em in,” advised Newmark. “It's Saturday, and we don't want to let things simmer over Sunday, if we can help it.”
About eleven o'clock a clerk of the Welton Lumber Co. entered Mr. Welton's private office to deliver to Orde a note.
“This just came by special messenger,” he explained.
Orde, with an apology, tore it open. It was from Heinzman, and requested an immediate interview. Orde delayed only long enough to get Mr. Welton's signature, then hastened as fast as his horse could take him across the drawbridge to the village.
Heinzman he found awaiting him. The little German, with his round, rosy cheeks, his dot of a nose, his big spectacles, and his rotund body, looked even more than usual like a spider or a Santa Clause—Orde could not decide which.
“I haf been thinking of that bond,” he began, waving a pudgy hand toward a seat, “and I haf been talking with Proctor.”
“Yes,” said Orde hopefully.
“I suppose you would not be prepared to gif a bond?”
“I hardly think so.”
“Vell, suppose ve fix him this way,” went on Heinzman, clasping his hands over his stomach and beaming through his spectacles. “Proctor and I haf talked it ofer, and ve are agreet that the probosition is a good one. Also ve think it is vell to help the young fellers along.” He laughed silently in such a manner as to shake himself all over. “Ve do not vish to be too severe, and yet ve must be assured that ve get our logs on time. Now, I unterstood you to say that this new concern is a stock company.”
Orde did not remember having said so, but he nodded.
“Vell, if you gif us a bond secured with stock in the new company, that would be satisfactory to us.”
Orde's face cleared.
“Do you mean that, Mr. Heinzman?”
“Sure. Ve must haf some security, but ve do not vish to be too hard on you boys.”
“Now, I call that a mighty good way out!” cried Orde.
“Make your contract out according to these terms, then,” said Heinzman, handing him a paper, “and bring it in Monday.”
Orde glanced over the slip. It recited two and a quarter as the agreed price; specified the date of delivery at Heinzman and Proctor's booms; named twenty-five thousand dollars as the amount of the bond, to be secured by fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock in the new company. This looked satisfactory. Orde arose.
“I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Heinzman,” said he. “I'll bring it around Monday.”
He had reached the gate to the grill before Heinzman called him back.
“By the vay,” the little German beamed up at him, swinging his fat legs as the office-chair tipped back on its springs, “if it is to be a stock company, you vill be selling some of the stock to raise money, is it not so?”
“Yes,” agreed Orde, “I expect so.”
“How much vill you capitalise for?”
“We expect a hundred thousand ought to do the trick,” replied Orde.
“Vell,” said Heinzman, “ven you put it on the market, come and see me.” He nodded paternally at Orde, beaming through his thick spectacles.
That evening, well after six, Orde returned to the hotel. After freshening up in the marbled and boarded washroom, he hunted up Newmark.
“Well, Joe,” said he, “I'm as hungry as a bear. Come on, eat, and I'll tell you all about it.”
They deposited their hats on the racks and pushed open the swinging screen doors that led into the dining-room. There they were taken in charge by a marvellously haughty and redundant head-waitress, who signalled them to follow down through ranks of small tables watched by more stately damsels. Newmark, reserved and precise, irreproachably correct in his neat gray, seemed enveloped in an aloofness as impenetrable as that of the head-waitress herself. Orde, however, was as breezy as ever. He hastened his stride to overtake the head-waitress.
“Annie, be good!” he said in his jolly way. “We've got business to talk. Put us somewhere alone.”
Newmark nodded approval, and thrust his hand in his pocket. But Annie looked up into Orde's frank, laughing face, and her lips curved ever so faintly in the condescension of a smile.
“Sure, sorr,” said she, in a most unexpected brogue.
“Well, I've got 'em all,” said Orde, as soon as the waitress had gone with the order. “But the best stroke of business you'd never guess. I roped in Heinzman.”
“Good!” approved Newmark briefly.
“It was really pretty decent of the little Dutchman. He agreed to let us put up our stock as security. Of course, that security is good only if we win out; and if we win out, why, then he'll get his logs, so he won't have any use for security. So it's just one way of beating the devil around the bush. He evidently wanted to give us the business, but he hated like the devil to pass up his rules—you know how those old shellbacks are.”
“H'm, yes,” said Newmark.
The waitress sailed in through a violently kicked swinging door, bearing aloft a tin tray heaped perilously. She slanted around a corner in graceful opposition to the centrifugal, brought the tray to port on a sort of landing stage by a pillar, and began energetically to distribute small “iron-ware” dishes, each containing a dab of something. When the clash of arrival had died, Orde went on:
“I got into your department a little, too.”
“How's that?” asked Newmark, spearing a baked potato. “Heinzman said he'd buy some of our stock. He seems to think we have a pretty good show.”
Newmark paused, his potato half-way to his plate.
“Kind of him,” said he after a moment. “Did he sign a contract?”
“It wasn't made out,” Orde reminded him. “I've the memoranda here. We'll make it out to-night. I am to bring it in Monday.”
“I see we're hung up here over Sunday,” observed Newmark. “No Sunday trains to Redding.”
Orde became grave.
“I know it. I tried to hurry matters to catch the six o'clock, but couldn't make it.” His round, jolly face fell sombre, as though a light within had been extinguished. After a moment the light returned. “Can't be helped,” said he philosophically.
They ate hungrily, then drifted out into the office again, where Orde lit a cigar.
“Now, let's see your memoranda,” said Newmark.
He frowned over the three simple items for some time.
“It's got me,” he confessed at last.
“What?” inquired Orde.
“What Heinzman is up to.”
“What do you mean?” asked Orde, turning in his chair with an air of slow surprise.
“It all looks queer to me. He's got something up his sleeve. Why should he take a bond with that security from us? If we can't deliver the logs, our company fails; that makes the stock worthless; that makes the bond worthless—just when it is needed. Of course, it's as plain as the nose on your face that he thinks the proposition a good one and is trying to get control.”
“Oh, no!” cried Orde, astounded.
“Orde, you're all right on the river,” said Newmark, with a dry little laugh, “but you're a babe in the woods at this game.”
“But Heinzman is honest,” cried Orde. “Why, he is a church member, and has a class in Sunday-school.”
Newmark selected a cigar from his case, examined it from end to end, finally put it between his lips. The corners of his mouth were twitching quietly with amusement.
“Besides, he is going to buy some stock,” added Orde, after a moment.
“Heinzman has not the slightest intention of buying a dollar's worth of stock,” asserted Newmark.
“But why—”
“—Did he make that bluff?” finished Newmark. “Because he wanted to find out how much stock would be issued. You told him it would be a hundred thousand dollars, didn't you?”
“Why—yes, I believe I did,” said Orde, pondering. Newmark threw back his head and laughed noiselessly.
“So now he knows that if we forfeit the bond he'll have controlling interest,” he pointed out.
Orde smoked rapidly, his brow troubled.
“But what I can't make out,” reflected Newmark, “is why he's so sure we'll have to forfeit.”
“I think he's just taking a long shot at it,” suggested Orde, who seemed finally to have decided against Newmark's opinion. “I believe you're shying at mare's nests.”
“Not he. He has some good reason for thinking we won't deliver the logs. Why does he insist on putting in a date for delivery? None of the others does.”
“I don't know,” replied Orde. “Just to put some sort of a time limit on the thing, I suppose.”
“You say you surely can get the drive through by then?”
Orde laughed.
“Sure? Why, it gives me two weeks' leeway over the worst possible luck I could have. You're too almighty suspicious, Joe.”
Newmark shook his head.
“You let me figure this out,” said he.
But bedtime found him without a solution. He retired to his room under fire of Orde's good-natured raillery. Orde himself shut his door, the smile still on his lips. As he began removing his coat, however, the smile died. The week had been a busy one. Hardly had he exchanged a dozen words with his parents, for he had even been forced to eat his dinner and supper away from home. This Sunday he had promised himself to make his deferred but much-desired call on Jane Hubbard—and her guest. He turned out the gas with a shrug of resignation. For the first time his brain cleared of its turmoil of calculations, of guesses, of estimates, and of men. He saw clearly the limited illumination cast downward by the lamp beneath its wide shade, the graceful, white figure against the shadow of the easy chair, the oval face cut in half by the lamplight to show plainly the red lips with the quaint upward quirks at the corners, and dimly the inscrutable eyes and the hair with the soft shadows. With a sigh he fell asleep.
Some time in the night he was awakened by a persistent tapping on the door. In the woodsman's manner, he was instantly broad awake. He lit the gas and opened the door to admit Newmark, partially dressed over his night gown.
“Orde,” said he briefly and without preliminary, “didn't you tell me the other day that rollways were piled both on the banks and IN the river?”
“Yes, sometimes,” said Orde. “Why?
“Then they might obstruct the river?”
“Certainly.”
“I thought so!” cried Newmark, with as near an approach to exultation as he ever permitted himself. “Now, just one other thing: aren't Heinzman's rollways below most of the others?”
“Yes, I believe they are,” said Orde.
“And, of course, it was agreed, as usual, that Heinzman was to break out his own rollways?”
“I see,” said Orde slowly. “You think he intends to delay things enough so we can't deliver on the date agreed on.”
“I know it,” stated Newmark positively.
“But if he refuses to deliver the logs, no court of law will—”
“Law!” cried Newmark. “Refuse to deliver! You don't know that kind. He won't refuse to deliver. There'll just be a lot of inevitable delays, and his foreman will misunderstand, and all that. You ought to know more about that than I do.”
Orde nodded, his eye abstracted.
“It's a child-like scheme,” commented Newmark. “If I'd had more knowledge of the business, I'd have seen it sooner.”
“I'd never have seen it at all,” said Orde humbly. “You seem to be the valuable member of this firm, Joe.”
“In my way,” said Newmark, “you in yours. We ought to make a good team.”
Sunday afternoon, Orde, leaving Newmark to devices of his own, walked slowly up the main street, turned to the right down one of the shaded side residence streets that ended finally in a beautiful glistening sand-hill. Up this he toiled slowly, starting at every step avalanches and streams down the slope. Shortly he found himself on the summit, and paused for a breath of air from the lake.
He was just above the tops of the maples, which seen from this angle stretched away like a forest through which occasionally thrust roofs and spires. Some distance beyond a number of taller buildings and the red of bricks were visible. Beyond them still were other sand-hills, planted raggedly with wind-twisted and stunted trees. But between the brick buildings and these sand-hills flowed the river—wide, deep, and still—bordered by the steamboat landings on the town side and by fishermen's huts and net-racks and small boats on the other. Orde seated himself on the smooth, clean sand and removed his hat. He saw these things, and in imagination the far upper stretches of the river, with the mills and yards and booms extending for miles; and still above them the marshes and the flats where the river widened below the Big Bend. That would be the location for the booms of the new company—a cheap property on which the partners had already secured a valuation. And below he dropped in imagination with the slackening current until between two greater sand-hills than the rest the river ran out through the channel made by two long piers to the lake—blue, restless, immeasurable. To right and left stretched the long Michigan coast, with its low yellow hills topped with the green of twisted pines, firs, and beeches, with always its beach of sand, deep and dry to the very edge of its tideless sea, strewn with sawlogs, bark, and the ancient remains of ships.
After he had cooled he arose and made his way back to a pleasant hardwood forest of maple and beech. Here the leaves were just bursting from their buds. Underfoot the early spring flowers—the hepaticas, the anemones, the trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early, bright-green undergrowths—were just reaching their perfection. Migration was in full tide. Birds, little and big, flashed into view and out again, busy in the mystery of their northward pilgrimage, giving the appearance of secret and silent furtiveness, yet each uttering his characteristic call from time to time, as though for a signal to others of the host. The woods were swarming as city streets, yet to Orde these little creatures were as though invisible. He stood in the middle of a great multitude, he felt himself under the observation of many bright eyes, he heard the murmuring and twittering that proclaimed a throng, he sensed an onward movement that flowed slowly but steadily toward the pole; nevertheless, a flash of wings, a fluttering little body, the dip of a hasty short flight, represented the visible tokens. Across the pale silver sun of April their shadows flickered, and with them flickered the tracery of new leaves and the delicacy of the lace-like upper branches.
Orde walked slowly farther and farther into the forest, lost in an enjoyment which he could not have defined accurately, but which was so integral a portion of his nature that it had drawn him from the banks and wholesale groceries to the woods. After a while he sat down on a log and lit his pipe. Ahead the ground sloped upward. Dimly through the half-fronds of the early season he could make out the yellow of sands and the deep complementary blue of the sky above them. He knew the Lake to lie just beyond. With the thought he arose. A few moments later he stood on top the hill, gazing out over the blue waters.
Very blue they were, with a contrasting snowy white fringe of waves breaking gently as far up the coast as the eye could reach. The beach, on these tideless waters, was hard and smooth only in the narrow strip over which ran the wash of the low surf. All the rest of the expanse of sand back to the cliff-like hills lay dry and tumbled into hummocks and drifts, from which projected here a sawlog cast inland from a raft by some long-past storm, there a slab, again a ship's rib sticking gaunt and defiant from the shifting, restless medium that would smother it. And just beyond the edge of the hard sand, following the long curves of the wash, lay a dark, narrow line of bark fragments.
The air was very clear and crystalline. The light-houses on the ends of the twin piers, though some miles distant, seemed close at hand. White herring gulls, cruising against the blue, flashed white as the sails of a distant ship. A fresh breeze darkened the blue velvet surface of the water, tumbled the white foam hissing up the beach, blew forward over the dunes a fine hurrying mist of sand, and bore to Orde at last the refreshment of the wide spaces. A woman, walking slowly, bent her head against the force of this wind.
Orde watched her idly. She held to the better footing of the smooth sand, which made it necessary that she retreat often before the inrushing wash, sometimes rather hastily. Orde caught himself admiring the grace of her deft and sudden movements, and the sway of her willowy figure. Every few moments she turned and faced the lake, her head thrown back, the wind whipping her garments about her.
As she drew nearer, Orde tried in vain to catch sight of her face. She looked down, watching the waters advance and recede; she wore a brimmed hat bent around her head by means of some sort of veil tied over the top and beneath her chin. When she had arrived nearly opposite Orde she turned abruptly inland, and a moment later began laboriously to climb the steep sand.
The process seemed to amuse her. She turned her head sidewise to watch with interest the hurrying, tumbling little cascades that slid from her every step. From time to time she would raise her skirts daintily with the tips of her fingers, and lean far over in order to observe with interest how her feet sank to the ankles, and how the sand rushed from either side to fill in the depressions. The wind carried up to Orde low, joyous chuckles of delight, like those of a happy child.
As though directed by some unseen guide, her course veered more and more until it led directly to the spot where Orde stood. When she was within ten feet of him she at last raised her head so the young man could see something besides the top of her hat. Orde looked plump into her eyes.
“Hullo!” she said cheerfully and unsurprised, and sank down cross-legged at his feet.
Orde stood quite motionless, overcome by astonishment. Her face, its long oval framed in the bands of the gray veil and the down-turned brim of the hat, looked up smiling into his. The fresh air had deepened the colour beneath her skin and had blown loose stray locks of the fine shadow-filled hair. Her red lips, with the quaintly up-turned corners, smiled at him with a new frankness, and the black eyes—the eyes so black as to resemble spots—had lost their half-indolent reserve and brimmed over quite frankly with the joy of life. She scooped up a handful of the dry, clean sand from either side of her, raised it aloft, and let it trickle slowly between her fingers. The wind snatched at the sand and sprayed it away in a beautiful plume.
“Isn't this REAL fun?” she asked him.
“Why, Miss Bishop!” cried Orde, finding his voice. “What are you doing here?”
A faint shade of annoyance crossed her brow.
“Oh, I could ask the same of you; and then we'd talk about how surprised we are, world without end,” said she. “The important thing is that here is sand to play in, and there is the Lake, and here are we, and the day is charmed, and it's good to be alive. Sit down and dig a hole! We've all the common days to explain things in.”
Orde laughed and seated himself to face her. Without further talk, and quite gravely, they commenced to scoop out an excavation between them, piling the sand over themselves and on either side as was most convenient. As the hole grew deeper they had to lean over more and more. Their heads sometimes brushed ever so lightly, their hands perforce touched. Always the dry sand flowed from the edges partially to fill in the result their efforts. Faster and faster they scooped it out again. The excavation thus took on the shape of a funnel. Her cheeks glowed pink, her eyes shone like stars. Entirely was she absorbed in the task. At last a tiny commotion manifested itself in the bottom of the funnel. Impulsively she laid her hand on Orde's, to stop them. Fascinated, they watched. After incredible though lilliputian upheavals, at length appeared a tiny black insect, struggling against the rolling, overwhelming sands. With great care the girl scooped this newcomer out and set him on the level ground. She looked up happily at Orde, thrusting the loose hair from in front of her eyes.
“I was convinced we ought to dig a hole,” said she gravely. “Now, let's go somewhere else.”
She arose to her feet, shaking the sand free from her skirts.
“I think, through these woods,” she decided. “Can we get back to town this way?”
Receiving Orde's assurance, she turned at once down the slope through the fringe of scrub spruces and junipers into the tall woods. Here the air fell still. She remarked on how warm it seemed, and began to untie from over her ears the narrow band of veil that held close her hat.
“Yes,” replied Orde. “The lumber-jacks say that the woods are the poor man's overcoat.”
She paused to savour this, her head on one side, her arms upraised to the knot.
“Oh, I like that!” said she, continuing her task. In a moment or so the veil hung free. She removed it and the hat, and swung them both from one finger, and threw back her head.
“Hear all the birds!” she said.
Softly she began to utter a cheeping noise between her lips and teeth, low and plaintive. At once the volume of bird-sounds about increased; the half-seen flashes became more frequent. A second later the twigs were alive with tiny warblers and creepers, flirting from branch to branch, with larger, more circumspect chewinks, catbirds, and finches hopping down from above, very silent, very grave. In the depths of the thickets the shyer hermit and olive thrushes and the oven birds revealed themselves ghost-like, or as sea-growths lift into a half visibility through translucent shadows the colour of themselves. All were very intent, very earnest, very interested, each after his own manner, in the comradeship of the featherhood he imagined to be uttering distressful cries. A few, like the chickadees, quivered their wings, opened their little mouths, fluttered down tiny but aggressive against the disaster. Others hopped here and there restlessly, uttering plaintive, low-toned cheeps. The shyest contented themselves by a discreet, silent, and distant sympathy. Three or four freebooting Jays, attracted not so much by the supposed calls for help as by curiosity, fluttered among the tops of the trees, uttering their harsh notes.
Finally, the girl ended her performance in a musical laugh.
“Run away, Brighteyes,” she called. “It's all right; nobody's damaged.”
She waved her hand. As though at a signal, the host she had evoked melted back into the shadows of the forest. Only the chickadee, impudent as ever, retreated scolding rather ostentatiously, and the jays, splendid in their ornate blue, screamed opinions at each other from the tops of trees.
“How would you like to be a bird?” she inquired.
“Hadn't thought,” replied Orde.
“Don't you ever indulge in vain and idle speculations?” she inquired. “Never mind, don't answer. It's too much to expect of a man.”
She set herself in idle motion down the slope, swinging the hat at the end of its veil, pausing to look or listen, humming a little melody between her closed lips, throwing her head back to breathe deep the warm air, revelling in the woods sounds and woods odours and woods life with entire self-abandonment. Orde followed her in silence. She seemed to be quite without responsibility in regard to him; and yet an occasional random remark thrown in his direction proved that he was not forgotten. Finally they emerged from the beach woods.
They faced an open rolling country. As far as the eye could reach were the old stumps of pine trees. Sometimes they stood in place, burned and scarred, but attesting mutely the abiding place of a spirit long since passed away. Sometimes they had been uprooted and dragged to mark the boundaries of fields, where they raised an abatis of twisted roots to the sky.
The girl stopped short as she came face to face with this open country. The inner uplift, that had lent to her aspect the wide-eyed, careless joy of a child, faded. In its place came a new and serious gravity. She turned on him troubled eyes.
“You do this,” she accused him quite simply.
For answer he motioned to the left where below them lay a wide and cultivated countryside—farmhouses surrounded by elms; compact wood lots of hardwood; crops and orchards, all fair and pleasant across the bosom of a fertile nature.
“And this,” said he. “That valley was once nothing but a pine forest—and so was all the southern part of the State, the peach belt and the farms. And for that matter Indiana, too, and all the other forest States right out to the prairies. Where would we be now, if we HADN'T done that?” he pointed across at the stump-covered hills.
Mischief had driven out the gravity from the girl's eyes. She had lowered her head slightly sidewise as though to conceal their expression from him.
“I was beginning to be afraid you'd say 'yes-indeed,'” said she.
Orde looked bewildered, then remembered the Incubus, and laughed.
“I haven't been very conversational,” he acknowledged.
“Certainly NOT!” she said severely. “That would have been very disappointing. There has been nothing to say.” She turned and waved her hat at the beech woods falling sombre against the lowering sun.
“Good-bye,” she said gravely, “and pleasant dreams to you. I hope those very saucy little birds won't keep you awake.” She looked up at Orde. “He was rather nice to us this afternoon,” she explained, “and it's always well to be polite to them anyway.” She gazed steadily at Orde for signs of amusement. He resolutely held his face sympathetic.
“Now I think we'll go home,” said she.
They made their way between the stumps to the edge of the sand-hill overlooking the village. With one accord they stopped. The low-slanting sun cast across the vista a sleepy light of evening.
“How would you like to live in a place like that all your life?” asked Orde.
“I don't know.” She weighed her words carefully. “It would depend. The place isn't of so much importance, it seems to me. It's the life one is called to. It's whether one finds her soul's realm or not that a place is liveable or not. I can imagine entering my kingdom at a railway water-tank,” she said quaintly, “or missing it entirely in a big city.”
Orde looked out over the raw little village with a new interest.
“Of course I can see how a man's work can lie in a small place,” said he; “but a woman is different.”
“Why is a woman different?” she challenged. “What is her 'work,' as you call it; and why shouldn't it, as well as a man's, lie in a small place? What is work—outside of drudgery—unless it is correspondence of one's abilities to one's task?”
“But the compensations—” began Orde vaguely.
“Compensations?” she cried. “What do you mean? Here are the woods and fields, the river, the lake, the birds, and the breezes. We'll check them off against the theatre and balls. Books can be had here as well as anywhere. As to people: in a large city you meet a great many, and they're all busy, and unless you make an especial and particular effort—which you're not likely to—you'll see them only casually and once in a great while. In a small place you know fewer people; but you know them intimately.” She broke off with a half-laugh. “I'm from New York,” she stated humorously, “and you've magicked me into an eloquent defense of Podunk!” She laughed up at Orde quite frankly. “Giant Strides!” she challenged suddenly. She turned off the edge of the sand-hill, and began to plunge down its slope, leaning far back, her arms extended, increasing as much as possible the length of each step. Orde followed at full speed. When the bottom was reached, he steadied her to a halt. She shook herself, straightened her hat, and wound the veil around it. Her whole aspect seemed to have changed with the descent into the conventionality of the village street. The old, gentle though capable and self-contained reserve had returned. She moved beside Orde with dignity.
“I came down with Jane and Mrs. Hubbard to see Mr. Hubbard off on the boat for Milwaukee last night,” she told him. “Of course we had to wait over Sunday. Mrs. Hubbard and Jane had to see some relative or other; but I preferred to take a walk.”
“Where are you staying?” asked Orde.
“At the Bennetts'. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes,” replied Orde.
They said little more until the Bennetts' gate was reached. Orde declined to come in.
“Good-night,” she said. “I want to thank you. You did not once act as though you thought I was silly or crazy. And you didn't try, as all the rest of them would, to act silly too. You couldn't have done it; and you didn't try. Oh, you may have felt it—I know!” She smiled one of her quaint and quizzical smiles. “But men aren't built for foolishness. They have to leave that to us. You've been very nice this afternoon; and it's helped a lot. I'm good for quite a long stretch now. Good-night.”
She nodded to him and left him tongue-tied by the gate.
Orde, however, walked back to the hotel in a black rage with himself over what he termed his imbecility. As he remembered it, he had made just one consecutive speech that afternoon.
“Joe,” said he to Newmark, at the hotel office, “what's the plural form of Incubus? I dimly remember it isn't 'busses.'”
“Incubi,” answered Newmark.
“Thanks,” said Orde gloomily.